


The Laundromat

by dahtwitchi, neutrons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, Crack Treated Seriously, Humor, Identity Reveal, Laundry, M/M, Mistaken Identity, inappropriate touching of other people's laundry, inapropriate use of washing machines, non-realistic depictation of the workings of a Laundromat, suspicious activities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dahtwitchi/pseuds/dahtwitchi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrons/pseuds/neutrons
Summary: Madara was happy to have found a laundromat open at this time of the night, no matter how small and run down it might be. As long as he ended up with a clean shirt for tomorrow's already stressful budget meeting, it'd do fine. His own washing machine couldn't have chosen a worse time to give up.





	1. Late night Laundry

**Author's Note:**

> Contains implied illlegal activities, unknown identities, but might actually be about supernatural beings or just a baker. It's also a very unpolished, post as it's written mess with an actual end game but too little planning for the way there and no schedule whatsoever. You have been warned.

Madara was happy to have found a laundromat open at this time of the night, no matter how small and run down it might be. As long as he ended up with a clean shirt for tomorrow's already stressful budget meeting, it'd do fine. His own washing machine couldn't have chosen a worse time to give up.

Tired and leafing through a magazine about amphibians, he wasn't prepared for The Guy to walk in. The light was fizzing and the machines old and loud, so it was with a start he realised there was another person loading up the last machine. He vaguely noted a lean and muscled body, white hair and red tattoos. It was all second to the blood spatter, though. And the blood all over the shirt being thrown into the machine. That the man had just taken off. Now followed by trousers.

Madara's brain were giving him thoroughly mixed signals. The blood splatter continued to drag his eyes more than the revealed body.

He was alone, in the middle of the night, with an eerie looking man in only boxers and with blood on parts of his body where clothes had not been covering him. Madara knew his blood, ok? Working forensics did that to a person. 

Then the man glanced his way, and Madara, to his shame, found himself freezing up. Was this a murderer staring at him? The red eyes were oddly fitting, they made the man look all the more like some freakish killer. Otherworldly and unreal. Swallowing, Madara glanced down at the arm most covered in blood again. The man followed his gaze, and tilted his head. With a curious expression he brought his arm up to his face and licked it.

He licked it.

A half naked, unearthly and pale man with red eyes stood licking blood in front of Madara. The machine with the bloodied clothing had started it's cycle, and the man stared thoughtfully at his arm under the fluorescent light.

“Taste better than the last one,” he hummed, and sat down at the other end of the bench, seemingly not bothered about his state of undress. 

Madara's heart beat faster as he wondered if vampires existed. The man picked up and read some sort of gossip rag. In only his boxers. Had Madara properly seen that the very fit man sat beside him in only his boxers? Because it seemed to be prodding his attention away from the blood. 

“Yes?” 

Madara started, the man was looking at him, slightly distant but politely. Ah, he had been staring at that almost naked body, hadn't he? And the blood. And body. But also the blood. Uncomfortably, Madara shook his head and croaked out a ‘nothing’, turning back to his own paper with far more intent than the article on (ummm??) deserved. 

Madara's whole world seemed far away, there were the squeaks and groans of the old washing machines. Round and round they went, like Madara's thoughts. He stared at the article, studying the printed pages thoroughly and made absolutely sure to not glance up again.

It was with great relief Madara hurried to his machine as it pinged. He couldn't wait to be out of the building and leave this bizarre experience behind him.

As he left, the man had fished out a phone from he didn't want to know where (oh for the powers above he was lying to himself, Madara couldn't help but imagining where very vividly) and seemed to take photos of the article. It was with a thundering heart and wondering if he had lost his mind that he left without looking back.

He was almost at his door when he wondered if he should have reported it in.


	2. Nightly call

“-and then I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I came home! I mean, it was fucking unreal, Hashirama!” Madara swore even more as his gesticulation with the iron almost burned the cables of his headset, returning to ironing the shirt dry and smooth. “I’m almost sure I imagined the whole thing and-”

“Have you tried yoga, Madara?” Hashirama said, voice filled with serene calm, despite having been woken at two in the night by his rambling friend.

“WHAT!? For fuck’s sake Hashirama are you seriously suggesting yoga? Now!?”

“You’ve been so stressed lately, sometimes we see things that aren’t there when we are tired and exhausted, and with the body awareness that come with-”

“STOP IT!!” Madara hastily untangle his headset from the ironing, and swore even more under his breath as a neighbour made their displeasure about his noise levels this time of the night heard through the wall. Lowering his voice to a whisper he hissed while attacking the shirt again “Hashirama. For the love of my sanity, don’t make this into another crusade to get me on your mindfulness blaha-”

“It’s not blaha! I work with therapy, Madara! It works! And you really should think of your heart, considering-”

“But what if it actually was a vampire!?”

“…what?”

“It was creepy, Hashirama, real creepy! In the middle of the night, he licked blood and liked it! And you should have seen his eyes, I’ve never actually seen red eyes before, it’s freaky and-”

“Red eyes is perfectly normal! It happens sometimes, you shouldn’t call it freaky!”

Madara blinked, Hashirama sounded far more upset by this detail than the fact Madara had met a half naked possibly murderer in a laundromat. He could hear rustling and Mito grumbling about them, telling Hashirama to end the call or get out of the room. It was a wonder the woman hadn’t thrown a fit over their friendship by now, the woman had even agreed to marry the man!

“Rrrrrright… It was real creepy, though, I mean, with the place and odd behaviour and all, and all that naked skin Hot Guy showed off just like that,” he mumbled as he shut the iron down and went about hanging the shirt up for the morning. Calming down slightly, it all sounded like a real bad story or the set for a weird porno.

“It does sound it,” Madara could hear the stubborn drag of breathe “but I still think you really should do something about your stress levels, Madara.”

“You stress me out!” Madara muttered surly.

“Oh Madara, it will all look better in the morning! You are just too tired right now. Remember to drink some water before bed, and decide to have a Positive Attitude in the morning and your meeting will go fine!”

Madara groaned at the chipper voice. Two. It was just passed two in the night, and Hashirama had been woken to hear about Madara rambling about murder and vampires and Hot Hot man body. Not for the first time Madara decided his friend had a very special kind of unnatural insanity going on. Two insane men in the span of an hour, what had he done to deserve this?

“Yeah, Yeah, so you say,” he muttered, unable to hide his fondness. With a yawn he decided bed really was an option, he was coming down from the stress and hit by a sudden sleepiness. “Goodnight, Hashirama, was good talking to you.”

“Goodnight Madara,” Hashirama’s smile was obvious in his voice, “and good luck with your budget meeting tomorrow!”

Madara fell asleep the instant he curled up under the blanket, brain fuzzily jumping between the sight from earlier and the damned budget meeting.


	3. Folded Laundry

The strange encounter popped up in his mind every now and then during the next week, and Madara felt it more and more unreal every time. Sometimes he wondered if he had just imagined it all. Sometimes he wished he had played it cooler. It was embarrassing. Or maybe, maybe he really had hallucinated the whole thing.

And here he was, again. All that obsession about the encounter and yet he had somehow ignored the fact he had no washing machine anymore. Like every other bothersome thing in his life the laundry pile had grown until he had to do something about it despite having too many other things to do. 

The same lights still flickered, the place was just as run down as he remembered. The notices pinned to the board seemed mostly old, and a few ad posters were so out of date it could have been the set of a movie from years past. 

It was also far too late, in the middle of the work week, empty of any other people. Hashirama should walk himself off of a cliff, Madara could stay up half the night if he wanted to! If he was too stressed to sleep, he might as well do something productive instead. Hence, laundry at midnight. Logic! Hashirama never agreed to see logic, he had told Madara that exercising was good against stress, and here Madara was. Walking back and forth, waiting for the machine to ping. That was exercising, practically the same as a treadmill. 

Ok, so he knew it wasn't. But Hashirama wasn’t here to call him out or suggest a breathing exercise that would only make Madara's self control fray at the edges. He could be restless and curse the department ordering system fuck up all he wanted. Damn he needed vacation. He did have vacation coming up, but it was to be eaten up by Hashirama's wedding, and hoping Mito didn’t go into labour early.

Madara walked back and forth, back and forth, machine going round and round, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. 

Blinking rapidly, he realised he was getting sleepy. Sitting down for a moment sounded quite attractive.

Time passed in flickers. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, sliding down the bench, trying to fight off the sudden drowsiness. It was unfair. He had been so keyed up, enough that he left bed to do laundry. And here he was, dozing off, longing for bed. 

He jumped as the machine pinged, heart beating rapidly as he looked around wildly before recognizing where he was. Grateful he was still alone, he rubbed his eyes and sighed, wishing he was in his bed instead. With a mutter he heaved himself up, moving laundry from washer to dryer and sat down again. Intent on not falling asleep again, he fiddled with his phone, opening up his go to news site.

Half crossing his arms, he sunk down almost the same way as before, only with his chin on his chest, mindlessly checking news headers over the free Wi-Fi this dump for some reason had. Really. Such an old place. The ventilation seemed quite bad, the heat from the washing machine and now the dryer had the room filled with warm, humid air. 

Warm and humid, dryer making a clinking notice each cycle as something metal fell down. It matched up with the blinking light. The article he chose fell in and out of focus. He wondered idly if you were supposed to not let metal things run in the dryer.

Warm and humid. His shoulders relaxed. He scrolled down, unseeing.

Warm and humid, dryer going clink clink clink.

 

“Excuse me.”

“GAAAAAH!! WHAT!?” Madara jerked upright, his phone clattering to the floor and gasping for breath. “What is it? What happened??” wild eyed he stared around him, hand grasping his shirt over his heart. He'd have a heart attack any day now, just you wait!

“Your laundry.”

Uncomprehending, Madara stared up at The Guy. They stared at each other, Hot Creepy Laundry Guy holding out Madara's laundry bag to him. He had barely been able to convince himself the man and his red eyes and passive face and, oh dear those muscles arms stretched toward him… Thoughts trailing off, Madara contemplated that yes, the man existed, and no, he didn't always do his laundry half naked. Workout tights and a tank top wasn't very far from naked though.

“Your laundry,” the man repeated with an ill concealed roll of his eyes. No, wait, that wasn't even an attempt at not rolling his eyes. “Go sleep at home instead.”

“What?” he repeated weakly. He had fallen asleep again? Looking down at the bag he realised it was full. With his laundry. Warm enough from the dryer he could feel the heat wafting his way.

Folded.

It was all neatly folded.

The bag moved meaningly toward him in a shake. Filled with folded laundry. The bag shook once again, bumping his legs.

Oh. Right. That meant The Guy must be motioning it toward him.

“What?” he asked, glancing up only to be treated to a red eyed stare. One really could believe in vampires, seeing those. Were they contact lenses?

“You were asleep, I had nothing better to do,” the man shrugged, seemingly unfazed by Madara's only half awake state of mind.

“What- uh- thank you,” he whispered faintly, as the washing machine pinged and the man gave him a nod before turning to his own laundry. Right, right, the man needed the dryer. Madara's things had been in the way. 

Holding the warm bag close to his chest, his eyes resting on the man's behind as he bent to take care of his own laundry, Madara felt a dawning horror. The man had folded his laundry while Madara slept. He had stood here, folding Madara's laundry for no good reason. Did murderers fold other people's laundry? Did vampires? 

The horror mounted as Madara glanced down into the bag. The man had folded his laundry, looked at and held every piece of clean laundry in the bag.

There had been underwear in there. Underwear and his ratty old t-shirts and hulk PJs. 

 

Madara fled. Scrambled to get his phone from the floor and fled. The man barely glanced his way as he practically fell out the door.

He would buy a washing machine the very next day. Definitely.

It took ages before he fell asleep once he was in his own bed. He had a crick in his neck from sleeping on a bench, and he hadn't had a single nice looking piece of garment in that laundry run. Only clothing that made him look like a slouch and the most standard of underwear guy there ever was. And he was wearing underwear another man had fondled. Everything was unfair and the world was surely against him, Madara was sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vaguely inspired by that one time Neutrons found some random guy asleep when supposed to do laundry.


	4. Detergent

“No no no, Hashirama, I didn't forget the dinner tomorrow!” Madara growled as he balanced his laundry bag while locking his door.

Madara had absolutely forgotten the dinner tomorrow. Which meant acute need to do some laundry to have proper clothing dry by the day after. Which meant the damned laundromat again, as it was way past bedtime when Hashirama had called him about Mito’s latest cravings and how they'd have to change restaurant. He had looked online, but still not decided on a washing machine. He really, really needed to do that soon.

“Madara, you sound stressed. Have you listened to the mp3 I sent you with exercises- Madara? Did you just drop something?”

Doing his best keeping the cursing mostly in his head, Madara scrambled to get hold of his laundry bag. Phone, keys and bag had been too much and he wanted to just sit down and swear his voice raw as it had all spilled down the stairway.

“Fuck, Hashirama, I listened to your stupid mp3, ok?” he barked as he frantically tried to get all the garments back into the bag. “It was such bullshit! Waves! Who the fuck thought waves were a good idea for relaxing!” he ranted as he thankfully managed to push everything into place and hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.

“Madara! I know you are stressed when you swear that much,” Hashirama admonished, his voice turning calmer and slower for every curse word Madara couldn’t hold back. Madara felt his jaw muscles strain worse and worse for each step closer to some buddhist monk shit Hashirama seemed to ascend.

“Hashirama,” he took a deep breath, “You are my best friend, Hashirama, but I truly hate you,” he growled, stomping along the pavement toward the laundromat. It was already dark, and Madara was quite satisfied with how fast the few people he met moved out of his way. Short he may be, but others stayed out of his path. Unable to stop a smug grin at the fact, he straightened up slightly and put more of a swagger into his step.

“Madaraaaaaa…” Hashirama wailed, his otherworldly calm gone in an instant. “Don’t hate me! I just want your best!”

With a pained groan, Madara answered before he thought better of it. “Waves, Hashirama, waves, I can’t relax if I need to pee, you idiot!”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’, you brainless-” he realised a couple he just passed had stared at him strangely, recalled his last sentence and wanted to strangle Hashirama again. Brooding, he fell into a sullen stomp again. 

“I’m so, so sorry, Madara, I didn’t mean to make fun of you, I promise!”

“Hn.”

“I’m sorry,” Hashirama mumbled, in his most-depressed-puppy-to-exist voice. 

“Hmph.”

“Lots!”

“Yeah, yeah. I believe you. I’m busy, gotta go. It’s late,” Madara grumbled. He know there hadn’t been any ill intentions behind the audio. He knew he was sensitive about these things.

“Madara, please, I don’t want to go to bed with us being angry at each other,” came such an intimidated voice that Madara cringed.

“Wow, ew, no, that’s what couples say to each other you buffoon!” he protested, assaulted with images of what that kind of horror would be like. With a put upon sigh, but in a gentle voice he continued before Hashirama could get even more depressingly pitiful. “I’m not angry, Hashirama, I promise. I really do have things I have to do before bed, though.”

“Oh, good!” Hashirama perked up, and the puppy simili still worked far too good, Madara could practically hear the tail wagging. “Goodnight then, Madara, don’t go to bed too late! Remember to drink water!”

With a snort, Madara bid his far too frustrating friend goodnight. It was simply impossible for him to stay upset with Hashirama. It was probably the way he still stared fondly at the phone that made him take a few steps into the Laundromat before he realised that He was there, again.

The goggles, rubber gloves and apron were new, though. 

Goggles, rubber gloves and apron. An apron with a disturbing mixture of spots. In the (still not fixed) flickering light, Madara wasn't sure if those reddish brown areas were blood or not. The myriad of bottles and containers and what seemed like half a lab was somewhat more distracting this time, though.

One of Madara’s eyes twitched. The man had looked up at him, blinked as he seemed to register Madara, and then turned back to his- his- chemistry? Alchemy? It sure didn't look like the well kept and secure lab he ran himself. There were things scattered on most surfaces, the things on the running washing machine rattling worryingly. The ventilation in the place was horrific and Madara cringed as he saw the man absentmindedly put a glass rod behind his ear. Had the man never heard of workplace safety!

If he had not been seen, Madara would have turned tail to run off. Dinner reservations be damned. But. The guy had seen him. He couldn't sneak away now, ratty underwear and then fleeing? No, Madara stalked past the man to one of the two empty machines, opening it with more force than needed.

“You should use the other one,” the man said. Madara froze, one hand still holding up laundry, slowly glancing over. The guy wasn’t even looking at him, the red of the cheek tattoo stark against the face in the white light. Eerie. Seriously otherworldly, with possibly blood splattered apron. Madara shivered and once again wondered what the deal was. Had he set up a narcotics lab in the laundromat, to add to murder and vampire? 

“Something didn't react as it should,” the possibly madman continued, “I'm sure the rubber lining isn't quite as it should be, anymore.”

Feeling as if I'm some form of cartoon, Madara, still holding the shirt in the air, turned his gaze to the rubber sealing. It looked as if the surface had corroded, rough and uneven where it should be smooth.

“...what?” he whispered, barely audible.

“There were some unexpected reactions with the laundry. I've told the management. The other machine should be fine,” the other said, as he tipped some powder into a measuring cup. 

“...should?” Madara added with a squawk. Should? Had the man put whatever experimental mixture in all the machines? 

As Madara slowly backed away from the broken washer, he felt somewhat annoyed. The tone, practically serene and as if there was no problem where there actually was one, was exactly the same Hashirama used when he was at his most obnoxious. Gnashing his teeth, Madara turned to the last machine in the row. Just how many frustrating calm people was out there? Traipsing through life as if problems weren't problems, not the least disturbed by all the things common people struggled with? Oooh, he reported it, did he? There was still only a single washing machine free for Madara to use, because this insane creature- experimented? With… no. Madara couldn't fathom what was going on at all.

Loading up the machine, Madara quite loudly and pointedly moved the clutter from that machine to the broken one. It didn't matter that he slammed the things down with increasing noise, Hot Guy didn't seem to notice at all. 

At least there was a nice view, with the man bending over his temporary lab. Well. Madara dearly hoped it was temporary. Surreptitiously he glanced around, but thought he saw mostly only laundry detergents and other household substances. There were far too much one could do with those, though. And the man also had one fine ass. He really should stop staring.

“Oh.”

Madara twitched as the other man let out the soft exclamation, wondering how long his eyes had been glued to that behind.

“Would you open the door?” he asked as he put a lid on one of the cups, moving over to open the windows.

“The door…?” Madara only took a second to react as he registered the smoke that had escaped before a lid was put on. With a speed that made his hip ache, he shoved the door open. There was nothing to hold it open, and so he stood leaning against it, staring at the streetlight on the other side of the road, eyes tearing from whatever the smoke had been. 

The door creaked as Madara leaned over to be able to see the weirdo, and had to swallow at the sight of him removing the rubber gloves finger by finger, completely unconcerned like some movie villain mad scientist. Who seemed to possibly be making weird laundry detergent experiments. 

Five minutes more, and his machine was going to be done. He was going to stay here, in the open door, for the duration. Where he had a front row seat to the view of Far Too Hot guy opening his own machine. As the man pushed the goggles up into his hair and ran an arm over his sweaty forehead, Madara felt the need to re-examine his own sanity. The way he dug out partly ripped clothing with stains around the holes, though? Nope. Madara was going to bring his clothing home as fast as humanly possible, he could iron the most important ones dry.

**Author's Note:**

> This story's concept came into being during times me and Neutrons have chatted while having laundry time. With both of us cursing communal laundry rooms, we projected onto the poor characters. None of us have ever met a real life laundromat, only using the setting based on TV shows and bending it to fit the story.
> 
> Spelling and grammar corrections are accepted.
> 
> Also posted to my Tumblr under the tag [#the weird laundromat au](https://dahtwitchi.tumblr.com/tagged/the-weird-laundromat-au)


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